Page 303 of Power Play

Her calm scared me more than if she had been crying.

Bliss cried when other people cried. She cried when animals were injured in movies, when children performed badly and kept going, when Cade looked at her too softly, and whenever one of us experienced an emotion strong enough to change the energy in a room. She felt everything without apology and usually made sure we felt it with her.

Tonight, her hands were steady.

She smoothed my hair away from my wet face and pressed her cheek against my forehead while I sobbed into her shoulder.

“We’ll talk about what you meant later,” she murmured.

I pulled back enough to see her. “Why?”

Bliss’s eyes moved toward Cade.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Why are you acting like that?”

“Cade talked to Ryan.”

The room tilted around me as I looked past her.

Cade stood near the door with his keys still in one hand. His expression was harder than I had ever seen it when directed at me. There was no warmth in his face and no attempt to soften whatever he knew because I was crying. Cade was the closest thing Ryan had to a brother, the first person Ryan had trusted after years of believing nobody stayed, and their friendship had been forged long before any of us entered their lives.

“Is he okay?”

“No.”

The single word landed with more force than if Cade had shouted it.

My breath caught, and another sob tore through me before I could stop it. Bliss pulled me into her arms again, but this time I saw Briggs over her shoulder.

He wasn’t smiling.

Briggs always had something waiting behind his expression—a joke, a smirk, or a piece of manufactured stupidity designed to keep anyone from looking too closely at how much he noticed. Tonight, there was nothing playful in his face.

His arms hung at his sides, his enormous hands curled loosely near his thighs as he looked at me with an anger so quiet that I almost didn’t recognize him.

“What did you think was going to happen?” he asked.

Bliss’s arms tightened around me. “Briggs, give her a minute.”

“I didn’t—”

“What did you think Ryan was going to do, Charm?”

My chest heaved as I fought to pull enough air into it. “I thought he would let me explain.”

“Again, right? You thought he would listen while you explained your reasons again.” Briggs’s jaw hardened. “Spoiler alert, you thought wrong.”

“Briggs,” Easton snapped. “What the fuck?”

Briggs didn’t look away from me. “You weren’t on the call.”

“No, I’ve been here trying to help her.” Easton stepped between the living room and kitchen, his attention shifting toward Cade. “What the fuck did I miss?”

Cade glanced at me before looking at Easton. “It ain’t good, brother.”

Easton went still.

The anger inside him changed shape. His eyes returned to me, narrowing as though he was finally looking beyond my tears and trying to understand the size of what happened beneath them.